Yes, yes, it's already De-bloody-cember. Xmas albums are onsale. Festive lights have been up for two months. Elf is on the telly schedule. Supermarkets are blaring out Christmas anthems. People are queuing for presents (or at least waiting in for online deliveries) and the annual flurry of end of year lists are already piling up. Before we announce our albums of the year, we thought we'd spend twelve days building up to it with lists and give aways. Partly as a tease but mostly because we're about more than some semi-arbitrary ordered list.

Over the next 12 days we'll reveal our Lost 11 albums of '11, the most read features this year, our reviews of the year, our editor's favourite things he's read on DiS and elsewhere, 2011 in photos, staff mixtapes, reader's playlists; we'll also share a daily giveaway over on our Facebook featuring a mixture of free downloads and awesome prizes, plus we'll have the most read threads of the year, find out what some of our favourite acts were listening to this year, catch up with some of our bands of the year including Wild Beasts and St Vincent, plus some of our people of the year including documentary maker Adam Curtis and comedian Tim Minchin...

For those of you who like a schedule, here's the rough timing of things:

Mon 5th December: Lost 11 of ‘11 #11: Wave PicturesTues 6th: Lost 11 of ‘11 #10: Craft Spells + DiS Editor's Songs of the YearWeds 7th: Lost 11 of ‘11 #9Thurs 8th: Lost 11 of ‘11 #8 + Wild Beasts featureFri 9th: Lost 11 of ‘11 #7 + Debut albums of the YearSat 10th: Lost 11 of ‘11 #6 + Small Labels of the YearSun 11th: Lost 11 of ‘11 #5 + Tim Minchin interviewMon 12th: Lost 11 of ‘11 #4 + Albums of year 75-51 + List of All Staff Number 1sTues 13th: Lost 11 of ‘11 #3 + Albums of the Year 50-21 + Dom Gourlay’s Gigs of the YearWeds 14th: Lost 11 of ‘11 #2 + Albums of the Year 20-6Thurs 15th: Lost 11 of ‘11 # 1+ Albums of the Year 5-1 + 2011’s Most Read EditorialFri 16th: Lost 11 of ‘11 #1 + Wendy Roby’s Singles of the Year + Your Songs of the Year mixtapes